Handcrafted Cuckoo Clocks – are you a fan?
There is one style of clock that hasn’t evolved much over the past few hundred years, and they are handcrafted cuckoo clocks. They still have the swinging pendulum, the pipes that count off the hour and sing the call of the little coo coo bird. The parts have changed a little, but the essence remains cemented in the style of the original clock made in the mid eighteenth century. There are two types of cuckoo clocks. One is an eight day clock that cuckoos every hour and the other is the one day cuckoo clocks which cuckoo every half hour.
Most handcrafted cuckoo clocks are made in the Black Forest of Germany. There are over a hundred clock makers there and many have been there since the beginning. The styles have changed to meet the trends of the time, but several of the manufacturers of the Black Forest cuckoo clock keep with the tradition of hard carved, ornate facades of the originals. There are other cuckoos from around the world and they include the Chalet cuckoo clocks from Switzerland. These are recognized by the deeply sloping roofs and figurines that move when the clock sounds. Most popular are the axe man and beer drinker. The coo coo is replaced by these figures and music plays instead of the cuckoo. Time marches on … but the cuckoo clocks continues to stand tall.
Do you have a favorite?